Community events, cancellations and major road work are optional to sign up.

It’s based on new technology.

“Our prior notification system basically gave an alert if anywhere in the city we were under a tornado warning or severe thunderstorm warning,” Marr said. “This is polygon technology so only the people in the path of the storm will actually receive the notification.”

“If they sign up for the program and the other notices are purely citizen selected if they choose to receive that information,” Marr said.

Marr said the city hopes everyone will benefit from it.

“I mean you save one single life in a tornado warning or an Amber Alert for a lost child, a school shooting environment,” Marr said. “There are many possibilities but it’s a reasonable system.”

Washington County also has an alert system in place called Code Red. Benton County’s system is called BC Alert System.